Globalization Film Festival

What happens when you are stuck at home feeling sick and thinking of thematic film festivals? Why, you come up with a list dubbed "The Globalization Film Festival" of course! Thinking about a few movies that have been circling my mind lately, here's a lineup of releases that are linked in perhaps gentle but interesting ways.

Syriana
George Clooney, you are my Hollywood sex symbol. It's not only cool that you produce and direct movies like "Good Luck and Good Night," but your new baby, Syriana, is a Middle East version of the film Traffic, interweaving stories from various perspectives: a young Pakistani laborer who is saved from poverty by a religious madrassa and swayed to become a suicide bomber; a CIA agent who has a change of heart about what the purpose of his life's work has been; the prince of a fictitious Mid-East country who is working towards democratizing his people only to be assassinated by US agents. A bit rough in terms of full character development at times, it still makes a good parable for today's situation.

The New World by Terence Malick
Malick has a thing for gentle female voiceovers and lots of extended shots of fields flowing in the wind. Witness Badlands and Days of Heaven (both of which had a really interesting subtext of labor issues and land rights, the latter of which is one of my most favorite of all-time movies). The New World fictionalizes the Pocahontas story to create a metaphor out of her--a "native" who moves between two cultures and ends up a world away. While still a bit romantic about the "natural state" of pre-colonization, it ends on a very interesting note, with "Rebecca" (Pocahontas) becoming a true hybrid of past and present, embodying the change that one cannot turn away from and forging her life no matter.

The Constant Gardener
If you can bear the over-strenuous editing and stylistic cuts that wind up being more of a distraction than a plot builder, this film is worth watching for what it attempts to do: tackle the touchy subject of global pharmaceutical empires and how Africa has fallen off the radar of the West in terms of a people's humanity. Ambitious, it disappoints from being all that it could be, but a valiant attempt and I laud the producers and director for daring to make this film when it can be so uncool to be political.

Last Life in the Universe, or "Ruang rak noi nid mahasan" (2003)
Thought I was only going to talk politics? This film is a joint Thai-Japanese production and tells a dreamlike love story of a quiet Japanese librarian living in Thailand who gets involved with a young Thai girl. Lapsing into atmospheric surreality at times, it's a beautiful film and combines languages and cultures in a thoughtful and lush way. One of my favorite recently viewed movies...